Big Trucks for Little Boys, Mermaids for Little Girls

Girl software. Boy software. What’s up with that?

Some children’s software titles are created with just one gender in mind. Mattel’s “Matchbox Caterpillar Adventures in Time” is clearly a boy title and will appeal to little guys who love trucks.

Disney’s “The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea” is a girl title because it features female characters from “The Little Mermaid” movies and has activities that girls will find interesting.

Here’s a closer look at gender-specific titles and what makes them so.

‘Matchbox Caterpillar Adventures in Time’

This software cleverly taps into boys’ interest in big machines to teach history. In this novel software title, the player becomes a little boy who travels through time with some earthmoving machines to help people in history. Sounds bizarre, but this setup works.

In the opening scene, players discover they are a brilliant little boy who has invented a time machine that works only if big Caterpillar construction equipment is used to activate a time vortex. Players can travel back to ancient Rome, Egypt, China and Camelot, or they can head into the future to visit a moon colony.

Upon arriving in a chosen time, players are given a quest, which always involves helping to build or fix something. Luckily, at each location, the player has the use of the two transported construction machines.

For example, when players travel to medieval times, they find King Arthur’s castle under siege. To help save the castle, they must destroy the attacking siege tower and then use stones from the tower to rebuild the castle. Luckily, a backhoe and a heavy loader are waiting to be used.

Players drive the machines by using the arrow keys or the mouse (or the controller from “Construction Zone CD-ROM”). By driving the backhoe, players are able to collect rocks to catapult. Players arm the catapult, aim and then fire on the siege tower. Once the tower is demolished, players can use the heavy loader to move stones to the castle. This and the other four quests can be played on two levels of difficulty.

When players accomplish a quest, they are rewarded with a special object from another time period that opens a fun arcade-type game when the player goes to that time.

Though each quest starts with a video showing the time period and presenting some interesting historical facts, “Adventures in Time” is primarily an opportunity to put little boys--ages 5 to 7--in the driver’s seat of big trucks.

Boys who love construction vehicles will enjoy this opportunity to drive around in history, helping people.

‘The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea’

Developed as part of the Princesses line of software, this title, based on the sequel to “The Little Mermaid,” targets little girls 5 and older.

Girls get to play with Ariel and her daughter, Melody, in five activities. Two of the activities are arcade-style games. In one, Melody dives into the sea in search of gems to make bracelets, necklaces and the like. In the other, Melody or Ariel navigates through a series of mazes in search of a missing trident.

The other three activities focus on creativity. In Mermaid Memories, girls use Melody’s jewelry box as a canvas to create artwork. The activity provides a variety of stickers, backgrounds, textures and colors for players to use. In Melody’s Melodies, girls can sing along with two songs.

In the Aquabatics activity, girls become underwater choreographers. They select performers, choose dance moves and patterns and decide which music to play. The resulting performances are fascinating to watch and highly satisfying. This activity was a favorite with our kid testers.

Neither of these game titles offer much intellectual challenge. But both provide activities that are very appealing to a specific gender.

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Jinny Gudmundsen is editor of Choosing Children’s Software magazine.

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The Skinny

“Matchbox Caterpillar Adventures in Time”

Price: $20

Ages: 5 and older

Platform: PC

System requirements: A Pentium 166 with 32 MB of RAM and 50 MB of available hard disk space

Publisher: Mattel Interactive

The good: Teaches a little history while boys have fun

The bad: Narrow focus of driving big machines

Bottom line: A fun way to put boys in the driver’s seat of construction vehicles

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“The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea”

Price: $20

Ages: 6 to 8

Platform: PC

System requirements: A Pentium 166 with 32 MB of RAM and 80 MB of available hard disk space

Publisher: Disney Interactive

The good: A mix of arcade-type and creative activities

The bad: Sweet but not substantive

Bottom line: Girl software that will appeal to “Little Mermaid” fans